


Erupt

by RikuMurasaki



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:59:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3802774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RikuMurasaki/pseuds/RikuMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's been having a recurring dream, all smoke, ash, and volcanism. It jolts him awake every time, because Dream Ray really likes it, and that kinda freaks Common Sense Ray out.</p><p>[More tags/warnings/pairings/characters to be listed as they become relevant. Rating to be changed to explicit when relevant as well.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erupt

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go out to Horrificsmut on Tumblr for giving me the push I needed to just "get out of [my] head" and write. (mightbeanasshole here on AO3. Check her out!)

Ray's been having a truly frustrating recurring dream for the past two months. It's always the same, every single time, and it always jolts him awake. He's getting a little sick of it, really, especially as what forces him out of bed in a violent gasp for air each offending morning isn't the contents of the dream itself, but rather an innate feeling that said contents should be jolting him awake.

It goes down like this: each "problem night", Ray closes his eyes, and Dream Ray comes-to surrounded in thick, choking clouds of smoke. He breathes it in, and it claws at his throat, rakes through his lungs. He feels like his chest should shudder, should heave it out in desperation for oxygen, but it doesn't. Looking around, he sees an area off to his left that seems less densely smogged, and he casually strolls to it, pulled not by a need for escape, but by some vague sense his dream-self holds that said direction is where he wants to be. Loose rock and soot crunches and shifts beneath his bare feet. The air smolders in bitter warning around him, and there's a constant, roiling rumble at the forefront of his hearing, but Dream Ray can't care less.

As he comes up on the clearing of smoke, he feels his heart bash violently against his lungs, his blood run hard through too-small veins, and his breathing hitch in retaliation at the sight before him. He stands, heart rate climbing, but eerily calm, at the peak of an active volcano. The cauldron bubbles angrily, churning smelted stone, and spewing searing ash miles high into a thundering, blackened sky. He takes another deep breath, sucking in the ionized rock vapor, and feels his heartbeat steady itself. Something in the back of his head screams that it's wrong, that this burning, smothering destruction before him shouldn't center him so, that he shouldn't find peace in the cloying, toxic fumes, but Dream Ray just takes another step toward the cliff's edge, coming to rest at the precipice, toes dangling off the ledge as if they're laughing at it, body lax in the virulent heat.

His legs tremble for a moment, until he realizes the trembling isn't his legs, but the meager earth beneath them. His toes curl against the jagged, soot-lined cliff. A smirk crosses his lips. His glasses crack in the oppressive, torrid furnace. 'Come on.' Another tremor. The igneous below bubbles up, and sprays mere feet from where he stands. The air is impossibly dry. He licks his lips. 'Do it.' The entire mountainside shifts in preparation. He feels the tension building in the air. The smoke and ash have caught up with him, and he sucks it in greedily. 'Any minute now.' One final tremor. The dam breaks, the earth heaves, and lava bursts skyward with such incredible, tumultuous fury that the cliff he stands on crumbles beneath him, as though in impotent terror. He doesn't scurry back to safety. He steps forward, foot meeting searing air. Dream Ray huffs a manic laugh. Brain Ray panics. He wakes up.

Gasping raggedy breaths, Ray shoots bolt upright from beneath his covers. He can feel the sweat in sticky patches beneath his sheets, and finds himself more than a touch disgusted, but far from surprised. This has been the theme of a crippling majority of mornings for almost nine weeks. He heaves a sigh in a feeble attempt to dislodge his heart from his larynx, and pulls himself out of bed. He won't be falling back to sleep now, not with the leftover adrenaline still pumping through his circulatory system.

Ray would be lying if he denied losing sleep over the dreams, but he isn't about to seek help. Not yet, anyway. They may be disruptive, but they're not that bad. He won't go so far as to say he's ashamed, but he's not really one to worry others over his wellbeing, especially over something as trivial as a few bad dreams. Alright, admittedly, a lot of bad dreams. Still, this is an issue he'll work out himself.

He stands up, shucking his sheets, and stretching his tensed muscles. His shoulders are drawn in hard knots, and he rubs them in a vain ploy at massaging the flesh loose. It does little to help, so he gives up, and trudges out of his tiny bedroom, and across the just-as-small living room to his even-smaller kitchen so he can pour himself a bowl of cereal. Well, he's going to, but then he finds he forgot to restock the last time he went shopping. Or to even go shopping at all. Instead, he pops open the fridge and gazes pathetically at his meager options. 

"Christ, Narvaez," he mutters to himself.

Resigned to his fate, he pulls some two-day-old pizza out, prepares himself a glass of water, and sits in front of his computer to eat his breakfast cold. He powers on the monitor, the tower hovering in sleep mode, and clicks the mouse button to bring up whatever had been on the night before.

Ray spares a glance at the clock to the bottom right of his screen. 4:13 a.m. It's another three and a half hours until he needs to be ready for work, and the process won't take more than half an hour at most. He heaves a sigh. The day is already going about as smoothly as he'd expected, read: not at all.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

When Ray enters the Achievement Hunter office that morning, it's to a commotion already in-progress. Gavin, the little shit, is holding Michael's beanie above his head, and Michael is shouting half-formed obscenities as he struggles to pull it back from the troublemaker.

"God- fuck- give me back my hat, you piece of shit! It's six in the morning, how are you already so fuckin' hyper?" He makes another swipe for his cap, but misses as Gavin steps out of the way. Ray sidesteps the scuffle quietly, watching with a crude mix of exasperation and fondness as the scene plays out.

"Because, Michael, some people actually like being up early and ready for the day ahead of them." 

"Bullshit. You've said a hundred times you hate mornings 'cause waking up is 'too much work'." Michael makes another grab at his hat, and though Gavin makes a valiant effort at sidestepping the attempt, he ultimately ends up body checked to the floor by his friend-victim, the hat wrested from his grasp.

Michael stands, a triumphant smile on his lips as he returns his headgear to its rightful place, and Geoff sniggers from his seat, sharing a look with Ray.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

By lunch, it's become wildly apparent that Gavin's morning performance is to be a theme for the day, and it's setting both Michael and Ray on edge, each for different reasons.

Gavin has snatched Michael's hat enough times that Michael has taken to recording their Things to Do in GTA with his chair spun to the side, allowing him to haphazardly split his attention between Gavin and the game. He's had to readjust his mic twice, but it's slowed Gavin's mayhem thus far.

Ray's issue is that every time Michael shouts a reprimand at their British co-worker, something in his gut coils. It coils because his tight shoulders unwind, and that's surely the wrong response. There's something inherently wrong with the way his body's reacting to the display, and frankly, Ray's split on the issue, the same way he's split in his dream. The rational part of Ray's mind, the majority share this time, is yelling to stay out of the blast zone, the area of danger present each time Michael steams angrily at Gavin's bullshittery. He's more than a little surprised then, when the unnamed part of him in-line with Dream Ray makes the decision to aid the firebrand's aggressor.

It happens mostly without thought, which is probably the only reason it happens at all. He passes a glance over Michael's back, signaling to Gavin that he's going to make a play for the beanie. Gavin smirks, and returns focus to his wild shooting of pedestrians, trying maybe a touch too hard to act nonchalant.

"You're, uh, awfully quiet there, Gav. You wouldn't be planning somethin', would y- God damnit, Ray!" Michael shouts in upset as his hat is divested from his unruly crown once again, dislodging his headphones with them.. "Et tu, man?"

"For those of you who can't see this," Ryan says announcer-like into his mic for the future audience's benefit, "Ray has decided he shares Gavin's deathwish. He just yoinked Michael's hat. I predict bloody murder."

"Sorry, bro." Ray giggles. He's got no idea what's come over him, but it feels good. He looks at the exasperated frown Michael sports, and thinks, 'alright, I've had my fun,' but as Michael makes a grab for his hat, something takes over, and Ray tosses the headgear to Gavin over Michael's shoulder.

The surly man gives Ray a stare that drips derision. "Fuckin' really? That's how it's gonna be?" The rest of the office chuckles as they continue casually slaughtering away in their video game, trying to rack up a good wanted level.

Really, this is all strange to Ray. He's entirely unsure of what's come over him. He's normally content to sit in his corner and mutter lewd jokes at the others. This brazen brand of goading is entirely not his style.

As Michael makes a final reach for his hat from Gavin, who is laughing like a toddler already, said man-child tosses the hat back to Ray in a high arcing throw. This is apparently the last straw for Michael, and as he turns back around, Ray, who is by now standing from his seat for their game of teasing, is shoved to the ground in a tackle reminiscent of the one Gavin received just a few hours ago. Ray is laughing hysterically past the pain of impact, and Michael is red-faced, obviously furious.

Michael successfully pulls his hat from Ray, but as he does, Ray uses the opportunity to really take in the man's aggressive expression. And something in him stirs. Sensible Ray panics. Other Ray smiles.

After Michael pushes himself off of Ray and retakes his seat, he maintains a watchful eye on both of the other Lads, losing the Things to Do twice over as a result. Meanwhile, Ray tries to hide his scrambling mind behind a facade of quiet jokes. Internally though, he's freaking right the fuck out. 

That little scene wasn't anything too bad for the outside observer, but it was terrifying for Ray, because while he was strangely calmed by Michael raging at someone else, he was excited when that fury was directed toward him. He's reeling. He's still feeling the endorphins from the altercation. This isn't the kind of stirring a thrill-seeker gets from roller coasters and hang-gliding, the "I-stared-death-in-the-face-and-lived" rush. That's never been Ray's thing. This shouldn't be either, but it's unmistakable. This is the kind of excitement he normally gets late at night with his hand under the sheets.

He spares a side glance at Michael, still a slowly cooling hue of blotchy red-pink from the short grapple, and has to gulp down a surge of smug pride that he's the reason for this bout of rage.

'I am so boned.'


End file.
